The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1887-01-26
WATCHING rAEla MONEY 1ILls.

. ~.
Methods Taken by New York Saloons
keepers to Keep Bartentlers Honest.
The trouble saloon keepers are put to
in this city to keep what they get over
their bar is simply amazing. The
mechanical devices for preventing thefts
by bartenders no longer serve the pur-
pose, though the number of checks of
this sort in use increases every day. In
the busiest places one now sees that an
extra hand is employed to handle the
cash, while the bartenders take the metal
price marks from the registering
machines, hand them to the customer,
and then turn the cash over to the cashier
and drop the price card into the lock
box, whose contents are counted up at
night and must correspond with the
cash.
But it is what one does not see that is
most suggestive of the merciless robbery
to which the proprietors either are, or
think they are, subjected. There is
one large place which has the dwelling
rooms of the proprietor over it. Tiny
holes are cut in the floor over the cash
drawer end, and, day and night, the eyes
of some member of the proprietor's FAM
ly are glued. to these fees. Ia another
place the proprietor employs men, who
are unsupported by the bartenders, to
loiter in the barroom and surreptitiously
keep account of every cent taken over
the bar while they are present. Whena
second one comes in the first one either
goes away or hangs about to hinder the
bartender from suspecting collusionS be-
tween the two.
There is large and busy saloon about
which there is only one feature not
noticeable in any other places of resort.
That is box like protuberance in the
wall parallel with the side street. Cases
of wine and barrels arc piled around this
so as to make it as little noticeable as
possible. 1t is a secret room entered in
two ways-by door from the street and
by slender iron staircase from the room
overhead. 1t is always kept dark, SO
that no one can easily distinguish the
little slits i'll it that command Wow of
the bar. The wife of the proprietor
spends most of her time in that box
watching the bartenders. When she
wishes to he relieved she has way of
notifying her iusabnd if he is in the
saloon. He then slips on his coat and
hat and goes out into the Street, He slips
into the secret side door and takes his
wifc's place at the peep holes. If he is
not i'll the saloon his wife waits for him
or summons another member of the FAM
ily from upstairs. This saloonkeeper is
a German. and is worth S150,000. He
says he would not have been worth more
than half that except for his caution.
His baTtendcrs know that they arc
watched and how they are watched, but
can never tell when any ono is in the
mysterious box or when it is oInpty.
All the modern tell tale devices are in
use in this saloon, but the proprietor has
little faith in them. He says that smart
bartenders can beat any machine that
was ever invented. He says that tlp
trouble is not that bartenders are any
more dishonest than other men, but tl,1t
the nature of the business is such that it
is impossible to take account of stool l, :"
as in other trades. and the waste must
be excessive before it can be prov.d.-
New York Letter.